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Flotsam from the "Happened
in January" Historical closet

Event 01-01-1923: Aimee McPherson opened the
doors of her Angelus Temple in Los Angeles to the sound of trumpets.
McPherson, one of the most famous evangelists of her day, baptized 40,000
during her ministry. Her Angelus temple was topped with a rotating electric
cross visible for 50 miles.

Event 01-02-1611: the trial of Countess Erszebet
Bathory began in Transylvania. Tagged the Countess Dracula in modern
books, she supposedly killed 610 people, mostly young women, and used their
remains for medicinal purposes, i.e., to stay young and beautiful.

Event 01-02-1974: a federal court struck down
as unconstitutional a Georgia law that forbade a woman from voting in Georgia
if her husband maintained a legal residence in another state.

Event 01-03-1933: Minnie Davenport Craig
was elected Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first
speaker in U.S. history who was also a woman.

B. 01-06-1412 France's greatest hero Joan
of Arc was probably born 01-06-1412 into a peasant family in
the province of Lorraine. She was burned at stake 05-30-1431, when she
was 19.
When she was 13, Joan began having visions, hearing
voices that told her she was to free France from the English and crown
the Dauphin as Charles VII.
The townspeople gave her a horse and men's clothing,
and she went to Charles. She led victorious battles, but Charles failed
to follow up, instead negotiating with the English.
His delays allowed Joan to be captured and then ransomed
to the English enemy, who interrogated her long and hard in cooperation
with the Roman Catholic Church.
Her sometimes humorous and certainly honest answers
to the charges of witchcraft and other such things infuriated the questioners.
They finally convicted her of wearing men's clothing,
a sin for women under church law in those times.
Her recanting of her "abjuration" only two
days after signing it allowed her to be convicted of heresy.
The Church turned her over to the English (the church
did not actually do the punishing), who burned her at stake 05-30-143,1
at age 19.
Twenty-five years later when she would have been 44,
the Roman Catholic Church said, "Oops, we're sorry," and declared
her innocent.
They canonized her in 1920 as a saint of the Roman
Catholic church when she would have been 508.

Event 01-06-1913: Clara Munson becomes
the mayor of Warrenton, Oregon, the first mayor on the west coast of the
U.S. who was also a woman.

Event 01-06-1973: the first vote for a woman
in the history of the U.S. Electoral College is cast for Theodora Nathan
of Oregon, the Libertarian party's vice-presidential candidate.

Event 01-07-1955: Marian Anderson, breaks
the color line at the Metropolitan Opera when she sings Ulrica in Verdi's
The Masked Ball.

Event 01-07-1991: Chicago's Illinois Masonic
Hospital agrees not to perform elective abortions as part of the agreement
to purchase needed land from the Roman Catholic Church.

Event 01-09-1990, as a result of a case filed
in 1985 by Chinese-American Dr. Rosalie Tung, the U.S. Supreme Court
unanimously struck down the university practice of keeping their tenured
rolls secret. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which congress
extended in 1972 to educational institutions, prohibits employment discrimination
based on age, sex, national origin, or religion.

B. 01-11-1795, Barbara Heinemann or Heynemann,
French-born U.S. spiritual leader of the Community of True Inspiration
who supported Christian Metz in his moves from Europe to Iowa and organizing
the network of the seven communities known as the Amana Society. As spiritual
leader she held the society together after Metz's death.

Event 01-12-1976: The life expectancy for a
white woman in the United States is now 75.9 years, and for nonwhite
women 72 years according to an announcement by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The second half of the 20th century thus marks the
first time in recorded history that women are outliving men. Birth control
and spaced birthing has made the difference.
In 1900, the life expectancy for all women in the
U.S. was 40 years, much less than men's primarily because of excessive
child birth, which made the average life expectancy of a married woman
35.
In the 16th century, the life expectancy of a married
woman was 25 even though menarche (and the start of child bearing) usually
began in the late teens because of diet (girls usually received less food,
often just the leftovers) after the men got their fill. This tradition
of men-first continues today in many American communities controlled by
fundamental religions.

B. 01-15-1842, Mary McKillop, Australian religionist,
formed the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart. A bishop disbanded
the congregation and excommunicated her, but she was soon reinstated and
eventually won the fierce struggle against the church hierarchy's desire
to control the Josephite sisters.
On January 19, 1995, Mary became the first Australian
ever to be beatified by the Roman Catholic Church.
(Background provided by Judy Redman, Chaplain, Monash
Uni -Gippsland Campus, Churchill, Australia.)

Event 01-15-1969: In South Florida Barbara
Jo Rubin, 19, was to ride as the first woman jockey at a major race
track - and then was taken off her mount by track officials. BJR was an
experienced rider who exercise and schooled (trained) race horses in the
early morning hours at the track.
However, when she wanted to try real racing, the boy
jockeys threatened to strike. The little gentlemen also threw things at
her dressing room door and shouted some rather ungentleman-like words and
phrases. They also said a woman in a race would make it too dangerous for
the men riders.
But it was money, not chivalry that was at the heart
of the matter. A winning jockey gets ten percent of the purse and the jockeys,
always a very touchy group because of their smallness and their constant
dieting, didn't want to share the pots of gold (and ego) with a GIRL! Finally,
on February 22, 1969, Jo was able to ride at Charles Town, West Virginia
without the world stopping - and she won her first race.
Using the publicity as the first woman jockey, she
got what are called live mounts, i.e., horses that are figured to win or
be in contention. She crossed the finish line first in 11 of her first
22 starts.
Unfortunately Jo at 5'5" was tall by jockey standards
and was still growing. Her height combined with an old knee injury ended
her racing career in less than a year.

Event 01-19-1990: Elizabeth M. Watson became
the first woman to head the police force of a major American city. Houston
Mayor Kathryn Whitmire appointed Watson, who would later wore maternity
"uniforms," probably the first police chief in history to birth
a baby while on active duty.

Event 01-21-1908: the Sullivan Ordinance
is passed in New York City making it illegal for women to smoke in public,
punishable by a fine of $5-25 and ten days in jail. And they arrested women!

B. 01-21-1840, Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake,
after a strenuous campaign SLJ gained legislation permission for women
to receive an M.D. degree and be licensed to practice medicine and surgery
in Britain (1876). She was forced to get her own M.D. degree at the University
of Bern in Switzerland and be licensed in Ireland to practice medicine
in Great Britain!

Event 01-22-1973: Excerpted quotes of the
Opinion of the Court issued 01-22-1973, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113
(1973) as written by Justice J. Blackmun: "To summarize: "1.
A state criminal abortion statute ... that excepts from criminality only
a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy
stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative
of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
"(a) For the stage prior to approximately the
end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation
must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending
physician.
"(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately
the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in
the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure
in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.
"(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the
State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may,
if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is
necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the
life or health of the mother...
"This holding, we feel, is consistent with the
relative weights of the respective interests involved, with the lessons
and examples of medical and legal history, with the lenity of the common
law, and with the demands of the profound problems of the present day.
"The decision leaves the State free to place
increasing restrictions on abortion as the period of pregnancy lengthens,
so long as those restrictions are tailored to the recognized state interests.
"The decision vindicates the right of the physician
to administer medical treatment according to his professional judgment
up to the points where important state interests provide compelling justifications
for intervention.
"Up to those points, the abortion decision in
all its aspects is inherently, and primarily, a medical decision, and basic
responsibility for it must rest with the physician."

Event 01-23-1955: The U.S. Presbyterian Church
votes to accept women as ministers.

Event 01-26-1951: Paula Ackerman becomes
the first woman in the United States to serve as spiritual leader with
rabbinical duties and authority.

Returned 01-02-1914 - In the southwestern
part of Utah is the city of Kanab. Slipped in among all that chamber of
commerce stuff is a fanciful article by Barbara Pyles who comments that
sand was hub deep the last 15 miles of the road leading into Kanab when
men were chawin' in disbelief over the vote.
Pyles writes, "The
men lived in a cow town on the Utah-Arizona border. It was 1911, and the
town of about 900 people had just elected an all-women town council."
(The first in Utah and perhaps the first in the U.S.)
Pyles explains that it all started as a prank, but
no one else ran so Mary Woolley Chamberlain, Luella Atkin McAllister, Tamar
Stewart Hamblin, Blanche Robinson Hamblin, and Ada Pratt Seegmiller.
The women ordered the licensing of peddlers and traveling
merchants, built a dike above the town to protect homes from the flash
floods that had been a menace, appointed a board of health forced control
of animals that had been allowed to run wild and constructed wooden culverts
where irrigation ditches crossed the sidewalks.
They turned the government back to the men on 01-02-
1914. There is a monument and a plaque to the women, but Pyles says, "one
gets the feeling there should be more."
To read more, go to http://www.xpressweb.com/vacationguide/womencouncil.html

Quote du jour "One need not be
married to achieve status."
-- Ms. Piggy's reply when asked what her marital status was.